Thursday, March 31, 2016

iZombie, Season 2, Episode 16: Pour Some Sugar, Zombie

I think this is the first episode where everyone knows
all about the zombiedom – and with one of Peyton’s informants murdered, she is
quick to jump on the zombie train and grab some visions (despite Liv’s
reluctance because she really doesn’t want to see what the stripper informant
had to see and experience).

Liv snacks on the brains and Peyton is funnily eager to
get those visions for the location of one of Stacey Boss’s safe houses. Peyton
and Liv are awesome together

Which almost makes up for Liv on the stripper brains. I
mean there’s one nice moment where another stripper points out to Peyton (who
fends off unwanted attention with “I’m a lawyer” with a strong undertone of “I’m
above this”) that she’s also going to law school – only she will be doing it
without lots of debt.

But, while we have that one moment, the rest is beyond
dubious. Liv climbs in strange men’s laps, gives Peyton a person dance and
generally seems to think a stripper needs to be compulsively sexual for no
apparent reason. This is like her eating parking warden and feeling the need to
put tickets on all the things. One’s job doesn’t usually become a compulsion.

When she isn’t doing sexy dances she is hyper aggressive,
especially towards other strippers. And it’s not just her – all of them are. We
have a brief moment of actual grief from one dancer, but most of the time they’re
constantly snarling at, attacking and slut shaming each other. And, look, it
doesn’t matter how much the put downs are witty and, yes, funny, it doesn’t
change the whole problematic nature of this whole deeply caricatured depiction
which is very
reminiscent of many of the problems iZombie
has had with shallow depiction of brain personalities.

Beyond the murder being solved and Peyton getting the
score she wanted (though there is still a rift between her and Clive over the
immunity she offered Blaine) there’s some other major plot developments:

Blaine is human again! (The show teased me with his
death. Don’t do that show. And before you say “there’s no way Blaine can die” I
will remind you I’m not over Lowell) But he also has amnesia… as in he
doesn’t even remember zombies existed. Not only does this mean Major probably
doesn’t want the cure, but it also means Peyton’s using him as a confidential
informant is no longer on the cards. On top of that, his less-than-brilliant
minions are now acting without supervision… this will not be good.

Gilda is officially confirmed as a zombie, she raids Liv’s
fridge for brains and is kidnapped – in this case I think by her dad’s minions.
Also Peyton moves back in which totally eclipses that scene because PEYTON! She
spent so long in the plot box I am so happy to see her more involved.

Liv spends a lot of the episode wondering about drake and
being angry that he turned out to be a criminal and then disappeared – finally demanding
answers she goes to see Drake’s mother who he is devoted to. She’s devastated –
she assumes her son is dead and reveals that he wasn’t a criminal, he was an
undercover cop. ALL THE GUILTS FOR LIV

Ok time for the big one: Ravi discovers Major is the
Chaos Killer, from his suspicious behaviour about his safe (Major needs to
invest in a better damn safe. You have three chances to put a combo into my
safe, fail and you have to go through epic migraines to fix it) to finding a
picture of Minor (still love that name) in an article about the Chaos Killer’s
victims. Ravi is duly horrified and has an epic incredible confrontation with
Major about it… who seems to go full on zombie right before Ravi drugs him
unconscious

Now was it the drugs that full-on-zombied him or the emotion? Oh this is going
to get messy